To guarantee access to essential foods amidst price inflation and supply shortages in some items, the Venezuelan government recently nationalized a major flour producer, granted low-interest credits to small and medium-sized producers, opened new subsidized food markets, sanctioned price speculators and hoarders, and is in the process of reforming the Land Law.

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Venezuelan Government Increases Control of Food Production to Guarantee Access

Jason Netek From April 23 through May 2 a solidarity brigade organized by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network took a tour through Caracas and Puerto Ordaz to learn about the Bolivarian Revolutionary Process from its participants. Brigadistas promised to bring the revolution home to Australia, Canada and the United States because of what they saw. Below is a small photo sample of that experience.

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Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network Brigade

Sam Mcgill On Saturday 10th of April, Frente Unido Socialista de Personas con Discapacidad (FUSPD – United Socialist Front of People with Disabilities) celebrated its first birthday with a friendly basketball game in Municipio Guacara, Carabobo State. In this interview, FUSPD President Jose Rodriguez explains the history behind FUSPD and its aims.

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The History and Mission of the United Socialist Front of People with Disabilities

From a recent interview : I think they ought to look at a progressive value-added tax, just because–and I think it's important the American people understand this–most of our competitors have tax systems like this. If you have a value-added tax, you put a little revenue to the collector, you lower the income taxes, corporate and personal, and you put a little revenue collector on every stage of sales in a product or service, but if it is exported, you don't pay the last price.

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Bill Clinton on VAT and Exports

On SSRN , “Strategic Delaying and Concessions Extraction in Accession Negotiations to the World Trade Organization,” by Eric Neumayer: Accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), is like no accession to any other international organization.

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Two Interesting Pieces of Trade Law Scholarship

Tamara Pearson – Venezuelanalysis.com Endless queues, waiting months or years for pay or certificates or signatures, the tedious and repetitive letters humbly addressed to all the necessary institutions, public servants and a party leadership often disconnected from the people and going against the working class: Bureaucracy in Venezuela; how bad is it, why is it as bad as it is, what impact is it having on popular organising, and what is the Bolivarian Revolution doing about it?

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The Insidious Bureaucracy in Venezuela: Biggest Barrier to Social Change

Federico Fuentes – Green Left Weekly The May 2 internal pre-selection of candidates from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) for the September 26 national elections served as another powerful example of the mobilising force of this mass party in construction. Despite these results, the discontent among some sectors of the PSUV was clear.

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Massive Turnout in PSUV Primaries Shows Support for Change

Corneta (Caracas Cultural Weekly) An interview with Palestinian artist Nidal El-Khairy, who is currently in Caracas to show his work at the Rómulo Gallegos Center for Latin American Studies. The exhibition opens on Wednesday May 12, at 7pm

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Art Should Intervene in the Media to Subvert and Humanize Information: Interview with Nidal El-Khairy

Venezuela and the Dominican Republic signed four accords on Wednesday aimed at strengthening cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking, bringing economic growth and integration to the Caribbean region, and increasing Venezuela’s participation in the Dominican oil market.

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Venezuela’s PDVSA Purchases 49% of Dominican Refinery

Joe Emersberger – Venezuelanalysis.com In December of 2009, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) put out a 300-page report entitled “Democracy and Human Rights in Venezuela” that re-hashes thoroughly debunked claims and contradicts itself by imposing a double standard on the Venezuelan government.

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IACHR Rehashes Debunked Claims about Venezuela

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger wants the WTO to help promote free speech : On Google’s recent development with China, Bollinger said, “I have the sense that the lines have been drawn in the sand and Google is withdrawing to Hong Kong and maybe beyond. … What's going to happen is exactly what is up for grabs. This is where we really need to get serious about this.” He said the importance of making the First Amendment a global agenda is “a better way to live than one that a world that really constricts information flows

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Free Speech and Free Trade

The final declaration of the summit of presidents of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), held in Argentina yesterday, condemned the recent immigration law SB1070 passed by the U.S. state of Arizona on the grounds that it criminalises people on the basis of race.

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UNASUR Condemns Arizona Immigration Law, Elects General Secretary

Michael Fox – Upside Down World Although the modality of each country and each cooperative is different, co-ops across the region are breaking previous paradigms and proving that they are not only economically viable, but have the capacity to join together and support each other in their struggle—either through the regional institutions or bilaterally.

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South America: Mercosur’s Cooperatives in an Age of Integration

The 5th Zulia State judge Erika Carroz suspended the trial against Yukpa Chief Sabino Romero and two other indigenous leaders who are facing charges of murder after the jury failed to appear for a second time yesterday.

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Trial of Venezuelan Indigenous Chief Suspended amidst Appeal for Use of Indigenous Law

Angelica Antia Azuaje – Correo del Orinoco International Rice, textiles and metals will be exchanged through transactions with the sucre. The incorporation of Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador is currentlyin discussion in the parliaments of those three nations, explained the president of the Regional Monetary Council of the Unified System of Regional Compensation (sucre), Eudomar Tovar.

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Integration will free the continent from dollar domination

By Jeremy Eichler – Boston Globe On a recent morning in this chaotic, traffic-choked city, a large room is bursting with a children’s orchestra. Gustavo Dudamel has dropped by to observe and offer words of encouragement. But the children have other ideas

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Conducting a Movement: Charismatic Venezuelan Leads Classical Revolution

TEDTalks The Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra contains the best high school musicians from Venezuela’s life-changing music program, El Sistema. Led here by Gustavo Dudamel, they play Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, 2nd movement, and Arturo Márquez’ Danzón No.

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Incredible Venezuelan High School Musicians Led by Gustavo Dudamel

During Bolivian President Evo Morales’s first official visit to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s home state of Barinas on Thursday, the two socialist allies agreed to continue increasing bi-national cooperation in the areas of food and energy production.

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Bolivia and Venezuela to Form Six Joint Companies for Energy and Food Security

Sam Mcgill – Venezuelanalysis.com La Salina is a small rural village of about 2000 people in Vargas State approximately ninety minutes from Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. I had the opportunity to volunteer there for seven weeks working in a communal library teaching English, supporting the facilitators of Mission Ribas, (a high school level free education program for adults) and volunteering in the local school.

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Life in La Salina, Venezuela

From Jason Yackee, on SSRN, a new paper entitled ” Do Bilateral Investment Treaties Promote Foreign Direct Investment? Some Hints from Alternative Evidence “: In this article I present a multi-method examination of whether bilateral investment treaties, or BITs, are likely to promote inflows of foreign direct investment

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Do BITs Promote Foreign Direct Investment?

OUP has just published a very interesting, and important, book on the global competition regime. Here is the link. http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Law/?view=usa&ci=9780199228225 and here is the description

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"Global Competition: Law, Markets and Globalization" by David Gerber

Kiraz Janicke, Federico Fuentes, and Julio Chavez – Venezuelanalysis.com During the recently concluded five-month extraordinary congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, Kiraz Janicke & Federico Fuentes had the opportunity to discuss President Hugo Chavez’s proposal to form a Fifth Socialist International, with Julio Chavez, a delegate to the PSUV congress and a member of the congress’s international committee, which is charged with drafting a specific plan of action to form a new socialist international.

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The First Socialist International of the 21st Century

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) concluded its five-month extraordinary congress on Sunday with the approval of highly anticipated party principles and statutes, just in time for this Sunday’s primaries in which millions of PSUV members will choose parliamentary candidates to run against a newly united opposition platform called the “Democratic Alternative” in September.

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Venezuelan Socialist Party Closes Five-Month Congress, Prepares for Primaries

Michael Fox – Venezuelanalysis.com Large Crowds Turn Out for 200-Year Independence Celebrations in Venezuela | ALBA Summit in Venezuela vows to fight Climate Change with System Change | Venezuela Celebrates ‘Day of the Bolivarian Militias, the Armed People and the April Revolution’ | China Offers Largest Credit to Venezuela | Russia and Venezuela Deepen Ties with Energy, Military Deals | Venezuela and Uruguay Trade Oil for Food, Promote Latin American Integration | Venezuela Criticizes Bias in Inter-American Human Rights Commission Annual Report | Eight Colombians Arrested on Suspicion of Spying in Venezuela | Venezuela Coming Out of Electricity Crisis | Two More Minister Changes in Venezuela | Venezuelans Eat More and Are Better Nourished than Ten Years Ago | Analysis article excerpt: Fighting Corruption or Persecuting Political Opponents in Venezuela? A Response to the New York Times 13:01 minutes (11.92 MB)

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Venezuela News Summary #95

The Venezuelan delegation to the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, called for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and urged a systemic change from capitalism to socialism in order to stop global warming.

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Venezuela Joins Climate Justice Advocates at Cochabamba People’s Summit